It was 2013, and the excitement was almost tangible. Though he was an inarguable hall-of-famer, Ghostface Killah hadn’t gotten close to a compelling front-to-back listen in years. Now he was set to collaborate with Adrian Younge, the film editor and producer who blessed the 2009 film Black Dynamite with a Morricone-worthy score. These two soulful nostalgics, Starks and Younge, were making a high-concept album, 12 Reasons to Die, with RZA on board as executive producer. It was the perfect combination, like a joint fever dream birthed by the ghosts of Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Gordon Parks Jr. And the first single, “Rise of the Ghostface Killah,” which unfolded a tale of a murderous ghost-slash-superhero taking the life of a mafia capo and disappearing in a swarm of killer bees, seemed to justify the hype.
But when the album arrived, the two artists seemed strangely out of sync. Younge soared, mixing funk, trip-hop and psychedelia, and lacing tracks with gloriously campy touches like the Greek chorus singing about roads of glory and winds of fury on “Revenge Is Sweet.” Ghost remained earthbound, uninspired, continuing the trend that had started with 2010’s Apollo Kids and carried over to too many of his Wu-Massacre and Wu-Block verses.
Part of the problem was that, for all of Younge’s strengths, his beats were designed to amplify a narrative that the rapper didn’t seem all that interested in substantiating. It emerged, eventually, that the two hadn’t worked together directly. Younge had recorded his beats to tape on his own, using an analog setup and live instrumentation to get the snap and crackle just right. Only later did Ghost lay down the vocals at a studio in New York, working off a script provided by the producer.
Younge wasn’t the only one enlisted to work with Ghost’s Twelve Reasons acapellas. As the release date neared, Apollo Brown, a Detroit producer with a fetish for the classic New York sound, was commissioned to create an alternate version, which, five years later, is being reissued by Mello Music Group. The Brown Tape, as it was called, was released as a limited-edition bonus cassette at the time and briefly placed online, where it caught the ear of the traditionalists Brown’s music is meant for. Where Younge tailored the production toward the album’s b-movie mash-up themes—the story of a crime boss betrayed and murdered, only to return as a vengeful phantom—Brown crafted his beats explicitly to cradle Ghost’s rhymes.
His style, a humble package of instrumental loops and well-placed samples over boom-bap blacktop, is a truer companion to latter-day Ghost’s low-stakes bars, illuminating lyrical quirks that were overshadowed on Twelve Reasons. The most compelling details of the album’s story line have to do with Logan, the honeypot who betrays Tony Starks. Under Brown’s care, the two songs setting up the seduction and betrayal flash with unexpected emotion. Cappadonna still out-raps Ghost on “Center of Attraction,” but both rappers’ feelings somehow sound more genuine over Brown’s piano keys. The tender rasp in Ghost’s voice is accentuated; Cappadonna’s frustration with his oblivious friend is palpable.
Brown nods toward ’70s funk on “An Unexpected Call” and “The Sure Shot,” standout beats that also spotlight Ghost’s best vocal performances. Even so, for all his devotion, the producer has what you might call a 9th Wonder problem. He’s an adept sample slinger with a good ear and a respectful attitude, who lacks ideas that would set him apart from his predecessors—in his case, RZA, DJ Premier, and other architects of hip-hop’s second golden age. That makes The Brown Tape less incongruous than its fraternal twin, but also less ambitious, less head-turning.
Beats like Brown’s could sing in the hands of a hungry rapper. But by 2013, Ghost was no longer that man, and with the reissue of the tape, that fact is front and center. Today, he’s pushing 50, has three classic solo albums under his belt and is a crucial part of several other legendary records. His legacy is secure. But even he seems to have tacitly acknowledged his own slipping standards. He’s spent the last few years mostly working with collaborators known for their instrumental music, rather than their rap production, hoping, perhaps, to slide tastefully into the background. The style that he helped birth 25 years ago, once known for its rawness, has become respectable in middle age, and so has he.
